Instant Campaign Builder by DungeonMastering.com Instant Campaign Builder by DungeonMastering.com – Subscribe to Dming. It's free! – Page 1 1. Foreword ..................................................................... 4 2. Introduction ................................................................ 5 3. Knowledge ................................................................... 8 ○ Your draft is your final product ○ Have faith in your improvisation skills ○ Choosing a style of play ○ Cashing in on familiarity ○ Copying games and stories you love 4. Props ............................................................................ 12 ○ Impress your players ○ Props suggestions ○ Meta-props 5. Improvisation .............................................................. 15 ○ Trusting your skills ○ Benefits of improvisation ○ How to improvise efficiently in 14 easy steps 6. Outline ......................................................................... 21 ○ Railroad vs. Outline ○ Outline graphic 7. Scenes .......................................................................... 24 ○ Lead ○ Objective ○ Conflict ○ Kick ass Instant Campaign Builder by DungeonMastering.com – Subscribe to Dming. It's free! – Page 2 8. Hype ............................................................................ 27 ○ The Buzz ○ How to generate hype ○ The danger zone 9. Planting ....................................................................... 29 ○ Why is planting essential ○ How to plant ○ Positive side-effect of planting 10. Beginning .................................................................. 31 ○ Setting the tone ○ Setting the mood ○ Making a promise ○ Getting a spark 11. End ............................................................................. 34 ○ Planning the ending early ○ How to end a campaign 12. Fine-tuning ................................................................. 36 ○ Superstar potential ○ Unique and bizarre elements ○ Random and useless elements ○ Game helpers 13. Have fun ...................................................................... 38 Instant Campaign Builder by DungeonMastering.com – Subscribe to Dming. It's free! – Page 3 Foreword I poured hours of writing and years of dungeon master experience in this project. I believe any DM can use the information in this document and reduce campaign preparation time drastically. The Instant Campaign Builder Project was originally published on DungeonMastering.com. I gathered the articles and made a few additions and corrections to provide the DMing community with a concise and helpful campaign building tool. Any suggestions and comments are welcome. -Yax [email protected] www.DungeonMastering.com Instant Campaign Builder by DungeonMastering.com – Subscribe to Dming. It's free! – Page 4 Introduction What is the Instant Campaign Builder Project? This project will help you achieve 2 of the main goals a dungeon master should have when preparing a campaign: ● Create the best campaign ever. ● Not spend any time doing it. They seem to be contradictory goals. Well, they are. Compromises have to be made. The more time you spend planning and plotting, the better your campaign should be. But I believe that it is possible to prepare a quality campaign without spending too much time at the drawing board. Instant Campaign Builder by DungeonMastering.com – Subscribe to Dming. It's free! – Page 5 The Instant Campaign Builder will help you to: ● Optimize prep time ● Channel inspiration ● Create unforgettable scenes ● Have more D&D fun with less work If you're really short on time and have a to prepare a game in 30 minutes right now, then check out this article on How to prepare a great game in 30 minutes. The objective of the Instant Campaign Builder What is too much time? In my opinion anything over 1 hour of prep time for 4 hours of play is unnecessary but feel free to spend as much time as you want creating and writing – I wish I could! So let’s say you’re planning a campaign that will last 100 hours of play - roughly 25 4-hour games. You should be able to plan the whole campaign in 25 hours so you’ll probably need as much as a few weeks of preparation in Instant Campaign Builder by DungeonMastering.com – Subscribe to Dming. It's free! – Page 6 your spare time – or 1 week-end if you’re really pumped up. (to get pumped up, you can browse this collection of gaming motivational posters or read this article on the Top 10 ways to get pumped up for your next D&D game. The objective of the Instant Campaign Builder is to give you the necessary tools to keep that prep-time to play-time ratio under 1 to 4. The prerequisites None. This project will help all dungeon masters. However. If you’re just undertaking the dungeon master profession, You might be best served by using a published campaign setting, and maybe a published adventure to get your feet wet, see what your players like and what your strengths and weaknesses are as a dungeon master. Instant Campaign Builder by DungeonMastering.com – Subscribe to Dming. It's free! – Page 7 Knowledge The most important building block in a campaign is knowledge. Your knowledge of yourself, your DMing skills, your players and their characters. If the characters have yet to be created, I suggest you plan a first game around character creation before you start working on the details of your campaign. During this first game, make sure all the players have some backstory. Also survey their expectations and style of play preferences. Your draft is your final product Chances are you will be the only one ever using your campaign. If your goal is to publish your work then the Instant Campaign Builder is not for you. Let's take for granted that your work will not be submitted to an art or literary contest. It is yours. Don’t spend too much time on maps or character sketches and be brief in your notes - as long as you are able to understand your notes when you read them. All the shortcuts are worth something - time! If you can save time by bookmarking a rulebook instead of writing down Instant Campaign Builder by DungeonMastering.com – Subscribe to Dming. It's free! – Page 8 some info, then do it. Have faith in your improvisation skills If you believe in your improvisation abilities you won’t feel like you need to plan out every single detail of the campaign. For improvization helpers check out Before the second game and The second game - 2 articles I wrote about planning and running a spanking new game. More on improvisation on page 15. Style of play Determine what your style of play will be. Hack & Slash? Heavy role- playing? Casual fun? Burlesque D&D? Ultimately that decision should be heavily influenced by your players. The best way to assess the success of a DM (and his campaign) is by measuring the enthusiasm of his players, so make sure they are playing the kind of game they enjoy. Instant Campaign Builder by DungeonMastering.com – Subscribe to Dming. It's free! – Page 9 Cashing in on familiarity Do your players have a particular hatred for one kind of monsters? That’s probably because you have introduced that creature in a past game. By planning a campaign around creatures and monsters you know well, you’ll save a lot of time. A couple of tweaks and modifications to theses creatures should bring unexpected surprises and a new challenge while still triggering memories of past encounters. Familiar creatures also have the advantage of rarely being utterly retarded monsters. Copy games and stories you liked I don’t know how many DragonLance games I’ve played when I was in high school but I know I always had fun during them. I’ve also played Amber, based on the Roger Zelazny novels. It rocked. Instant Campaign Builder by DungeonMastering.com – Subscribe to Dming. It's free! – Page 10 Check out these resources for getting inspiration from various sources: ● Historical characters to jumpstart your campaign , by me. ● Start a novel game , by D&D Nerd. ● GM as a video game designer , by Treasure Tables. Instant Campaign Builder by DungeonMastering.com – Subscribe to Dming. It's free! – Page 11 Props Your players don’t need to know that you only spend 1 hour or less preparing for each game. They just want to be entertained. They want something different. Why props? It makes an imaginary world more real, tangible. If you tell your players that their characters find an old ring in a chest and you actually hand them a worn ring, they’ll be impressed. It definitely adds something to a game. 7 props suggestions for your D&D game 1. An old parchment. Soak a sheet of paper in watered down coffee then let it dry. You’ll have a crispy, old parchment. 2. Gold pieces - real ones! Check out the Campaign Coins website. I learned about these thanks to this Treasure Tables post about GenCon products. 3. Jewelry. You can find worthless necklaces or rings at thrift stores, Instant Campaign Builder by DungeonMastering.com – Subscribe to Dming. It's free! – Page 12 garage sales, or even at home. 4. A message in a bottle. A little cliche but your players should forgive you if you actually hand them a bottle. Opening the bottle and fetching the message inside will be like opening a Christmas present. 5. NPC character sketches. I like to browse JCM’s RPG art every now and then for character sketches. He takes requests and commissions too. 6. A sand rose or volcanic rock. Anything strange or unique will do. 7. An old compass or any anachronism. That could be a good plot hook! Reader suggestion – Psygnnosed says: A few years ago, when running a campaign around here (Portugal), I used an NPC that pretended to be a beggar, and addressed the players in a tavern. I used an iron mug, with a few coins inside, to make noise, and leaned the mug towards one of the players. Inside there was a folded paper with a message. When he saw it, he pretended to place a coin in the mug and took the paper without the other guys noticing. What now? I wrote this part of the Instant Campaign Builder early in the series for a reason. If you design your adventure and then try to find props that fit Instant Campaign Builder by DungeonMastering.com – Subscribe to Dming.